


Until the Light

by lyriumyue



Series: Silt and Timber [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bonding, F/M, Fluff, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 16:02:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12708273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyriumyue/pseuds/lyriumyue
Summary: It's cold, the lanterns burn low. At this time, the Inquisition sleeps, except for her, and the not-so-stranger with the face of her past. There's a lot she wants to say to the Commander.





	Until the Light

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place between the fall of Haven and the full recovery of Skyhold. Self-indulgent extra fluff that just didn't fit into the flow of the narrative for _In Blackest Envy._
> 
> Minor spoilers, even though the spoilers follow the in-game dialogue and interactions following the loss of Haven.

The wind blows cold in Skyhold this night.

The worst of winter is yet to pass, but the wind comes from the far north and freezes solid the rain and snow from the morning, covering the whole of the fortress in a thin layer of ice.

The sky is clear now, and an uncomfortable tinge of green glimmers off the barely-there rooftops, the broken parapets, and the oiled tent canvases as the fracture in the heavens lights the night like a poisoned sun. It reflects, mirror-like, off the fjord that runs through the valley below.

When the sun sets, the castle silences, except for the lightest footfalls of Leliana's people and the general din of warmth from the tavern, yet unnamed. They called off construction hours ago when the wind started and the ice set. The climb up the stairs to the walls is slippery, and dangerous, and the soldiers on the ground caution her against it but she just shrugs, puts one hand out against the frozen wall and carefully makes her way up.

Commander Cullen insists on the broken tower overlooking the whole of Skyhold. Kiaran doesn't know why. It's cold, the roof is half gone, and the hearth seems more for show than function. Maybe it's because he's Ferelden, and it reminds him of home the same way she feels stronger and safer in the narrow alleys of a city.

She ponders the wonder of it all as the freezing gale bites through her cloak and scarf. All these weird, powerful people in one place. Lavellan from the Dales, Dorian from Tevinter, Cassandra from Nevarra. The Trevelyans from the Marches. And here they all were, still alive.

Kiaran's knock on the door is muffled by her gloves, so she settles for a light tap with her boot.

"Come in," comes the tired, barely heard response.

The door resists her at first, the wood swollen and stuck in the frame. She pushes and pulls but there's no change.

She backs up to charge it with her shoulder but there he is wrenching open the door.

She stumbles headfirst into his chestplate.

He's stunned, wordless. "...Lady Kiaran?"

Kiaran bursts out in nervous laughter and hides her burning face behind her scarf. "I can't believe you just saw me do that."

"I..." He chooses his words carefully, "...can't believe you just did?" He pushes the door shut behind her, head tilted slightly to the side, as if trying to understand a riddle. He'd seen her do countless rash things in the past, but so rarely do her missteps end in such natural...giggles. The room feels warmer for the rarity of a smile on her usually so serious, so fierce face.

Kiaran drapes her scarf and gloves on the broken chair in the corner. "Maker, Cullen, how do you endure this?" She crosses her eyes as her breath comes out in a white puff. "Do Fereldens have natural cold immunity?"

He circles around her, back to the desk where piles of books and documents litter the surface. His gloves and gauntlets sit proud over one such stack. "I suppose I just haven't noticed," he offers. He gestures to the one unclaimed space, a seat upholstered in faded red fabric on the other side of the desk. She sits - rather, gracelessly plops - into the chair. He imagines she does this specifically because it irks Josephine to no end, because he's seen her behave with poise like it's nothing. He can't understand what makes her feel so casual here.

They watch each other without speaking.

He picks absently at the frayed corner of a book he found earlier. She rarely approaches him without having something to say, or a vehement disagreement toward himself or her brother, that he can't help but brace himself when she corners him alone.

But she doesn't say anything, and her expression is altogether pleasant, face still rosy from her embarrassing stunt at the door. She tucks herself up in a bundle as her hood falls back, shakes her head to let freshly cut curls fall loose, almost an inch above the line of her shoulders.

"You cut your hair," he says. It's the first thing he sees.

Kiaran nods, glances away as she bites her lip. "Yeah, well..."

"It suits you," he continues, unsure of why she's dodging it, "May I ask why? The winter is bitter." Most women he knew preferred to wait for the warmer weather to wear it shorter.

Another unprompted smile grows on her face. "Josephine kept touching it."

"Ah."

"Which I hate."

"Yes."

"And then Dorian said, 'Cassandra's a princess and no one touches her hair' and so I thought it was a great idea. Now it's just long enough to frustrate her that she can't do anything."

Cullen didn't think Cassandra's preference for a clipped style was what kept noble hands from invading her space. "...I see."

Kiaran nods, but chews on her lip again. "It doesn't make me look like a child?"

"What?" He doesn't really understand the question, but she stares at him with all the intensity of an expected answer. What if he says the wrong answer? He can feel the heat at the back of his neck. "...not at all. Did someone suggest that to you?"

She shakes her head. Her expression turns solemn. "I just...get tired of being 'the Herald's kid sister.'" She hasn't felt like a child in years, not since they were sent to the Circle in Ostwick.

"They do you an incredible disservice with such a bland moniker," Cullen says, the barest hint of laughter in his throat. "Your strategic moves to get what you want are far too calculated to ever be mistaken as the efforts of a child."

Her brows furrow. Is this a compliment, or an insult?

But Cullen turns away from her to sort more tomes into the empty bookshelf on the wall. If he means to dig at her, it does not show, and she watches with curiosity as he follows a haphazard order on where he wants to place everything. She sticks out one hand to twist at her hair, feeling the smooth, blunt edges between her fingers. Cullen says he likes it, and he doesn't much dwell on anything to do with appearance, so she supposes that's a good sign. The last time she cut it was...a long time ago? As soon as she made it out of the Gallows she took the little knife in her belt and cut her hair down so it was just the barest volume of curl in a high, tight ponytail, out of her face and so different from her careful presentation within the Circle.

"I actually came for a reason," she says after a while. _First, I knew you'd be the only person still awake_ , she thinks. That part she keeps to herself. "I..." _I wanted to ask..._ "...didn't get a chance to thank you."

"Thank me?" He walks back toward her, leans against the desk edge and crosses his arms casually. "What for?" He isn't sure what she has to thank him for. He supposes they haven't traded blows since before Aedhin left for Therinfal Redoubt, and that's a mercy from Andraste herself. He notes that she avoids looking at him, staring intently at his shield resting against the other wall.

"For...for the thing," she says.

Cullen raises his eyebrows. "The thing." He hasn't a clue.

"Yes, after the mines, when I..." _Almost died_. The words go unsaid. "You didn't have to."

He nods. "No one _has_ to do anything. I'm surprised you remember." He remembers. He still has the nightmares of what-ifs, her brother's fury with his little sister's bloody and burned body in Cullen's arms, knowing he could have done more if only he'd been faster--

"--I was scared like I've never been, but you were so...calm, and you knew what to do," she rambles, bringing him back, "And even after, I couldn't even think but you knew the lyrium was the problem, not my wounds, and you should have let me have it then, I did something very stupid and almost got you killed but..." She stops abruptly, looks up at him now through thick dark lashes, and he's never noticed the bright copper in her eyes before.

"I never said thanks and it's been eating at me for a while."

His expression, his posture, softens at the confession, and he gives her a warm smile. "Well..." Cullen scratches at the back of his head, "You're welcome." _I wouldn't even hesitate to do it again, and do it better._

Kiaran reflects his smile, the kind of crooked half-grin that she and her brother both wear when they're happy. He thinks even if it's a family trait, she looks much better in it, even if smiling comes so rarely to her. He's proud to have brought out at least a little. It's more than he deserves, but it gives him faith this isn't all for nothing. That he's more than nothing.

"Also for...trusting me. Helping find Aedhin." The smile fades away, replaced with the usual crease of worry between her brows.

He nods solemnly as she purses her lips into a line. There's more she wants to say, but isn't, and though he's not sure what the words might be, he can guess. He's careful not to move too suddenly, she startles easily, this he's learned from too many comfortable conversations forced into accidental confrontations. Cullen opens his posture more, angles himself toward her, sits straighter and more attentive against the desk. He waits.

"How is he?" he asks softly.

"Sleeping when I left." She talks more into her cloak than to Cullen. "I can tell he's in a lot of pain. Luin says there isn't anything we can do but wait."

"He's not wrong," Cullen agrees, "But I've seen men come back with lesser injuries, and not nearly manage the strength of character as your brother. The journey up here was long. With rest, he'll recover." A pause. "It's not your fault. None of us were equipped to battle a blighted dragon." They still aren't.

"I know, I..." She shifts. "I couldn't even...what if that was the last time I saw him?" Parting words in anger, grief. She wonders how many people heard her sobbing into Cullen's shoulder once the healers took Aedhin away on a stretcher, eyelids and lips purple-blue and his body more blood than armour?

"It wasn't," he assures her, wonders if she'll close up and fight him if he reaches for her. He holds still. Kiaran watches him with intensity, unblinking and calm, as if she's measuring him and his movements, his responses.

She feels both big and small in his presence. Him, she's not afraid of --he doesn't cringe when she speaks or brush her off when she's angry, and she feels like pure, limitless fire when they're on the same page, even if it's only happened once or twice. But she considers his history, what little she's pieced from the camp and from Varric and her own experience, his calculated movements down to the smallest motions, effortlessly gentle and unquestionably strong. And for that, she feels tiny, thinks about the lyrium she hasn't seen him use since they were their previous selves, how he still lunges at demons with confidence and clarity and protects others without hesitation.

"How come you don't take it anymore?" she blurts, then claps a hand over her mouth in apology. Cullen stares at her with no expression except for a darkness, a shadow over the rose-gold of his eyes.

"Of course you'd notice," he says, with a wry half-chuckle, and turns to look back at the desk. Even closed in the drawer, he can feel the presence, the call.

"That was crass. I'm sorry, it's private, you don't have to answer," she babbles, untangles herself from her cloak in the seat and stands.

With him leaning like this, they're almost eye-level. She looks like she struggles to say the next thing on her mind, on the tip of her tongue, which Cullen finds strange because few things hold Kiaran back from saying exactly what she feels. But she hasn't run off, hasn't gone on the defensive and even though he can feel his own walls coming up, warning sirens ringing in his mind, Cullen grasps one of her hands in his. Her hands are cool to the touch.

"It was a decision I made when I left Kirkwall," he explains, tries not to hear the voice inside him telling him not to share, "I watched enough people lose themselves in it, fall apart in its power. I didn't want to wake up on the same path. There has to be another way." He leaves out the part about how lyrium consumes templars, the bad and the good, the way its song never stops and plays eternally, the night terrors illuminated by the reach of the Fade and the shuddering tremors in his hands when the day is too much. She doesn't need to know those parts, that weakness.

The silence between them is thunderous. Her mouth hangs open just slightly, like she can't quite process the admission, and Cullen thinks he might even ponder her shock and the emotions that cross her face, but he's stuck on jade and copper and bronze, and how do that many colours exist so harmoniously in one place?

"Won't it kill you?" Her voice grows higher in pitch, echoing worry. Cullen's touched, but admonishes himself for causing her distress now among her stress for her brother.

"It hasn't yet," and he smiles, a reassuring smirk, "And Cassandra's support gives me strength. If I have a lapse in...judgement, I trust her to make the right call for our cause."

"Have you told Aedhin?"

"I did not want to cause undue duress while...he's occupied."

"Oh." She looks down in thought. No one ever tells her secrets they haven't already passed to Aedhin, except Dorian, but his secrets...well, they're not regular secrets, she can't possibly reflect on those without turning a hundred shades of scarlet and losing herself in the reality of lost teen years that _should_ have been spent fooling around--

Cullen is still holding her hand.

"That's why the headaches...and when...so you're in pain...always so constantly?"

His smile doesn't waver, though it should. But, this he believes. "It is only pain. Pain can be endured."

Her fingers curl inside his grasp.

"That's wise," she murmurs, her gaze drops, "Or...foolish."

Cullen can't help but laugh, almost falls to the urge to sweep her in closer and tell her how he appreciates the subtle ways she calls him out. He catches himself and settles for a reassuring squeeze of her slender palm.

"It's hard to tell, isn't it?"

When Kiaran looks up again, she's a breath away with the crooked half-smile back on her face. "You play the line well."

Cullen tilts his chin downward. Half a breath, now. "Small things make it easier..."

The firelight glows around him, illuminated in sunshine yellow around his hair. Kiaran searches him for the next step, the next piece, she can feel his anticipation in his breaths, the way they just barely tickle the tip of her nose, can feel him holding something back. Unexplainable nervousness blooms in her, grows hot on her face, but she loses the words before she speaks, falling short on her lips when she tries. He gives her hand a gentle tug, closer.

"Cullen?"

"Hm?"

A hard knock comes at the door. "Commander!"

She slips through his fingers, steps away without a second glance back to where she left her gloves and scarf.

Cassandra isn't one to wait, and opens the door without hesitation --and without struggle, Kiaran notices. She's already dressed again and pulling her hood up when she glances back at Cullen.

He sees trepidation, uncertainty in Kiaran's eyes.

Cassandra looks between the two, puts her hands on her hips impatiently.

Kiaran gives a nod. "I'll see you tomorrow?" She's almost out the door when he replies, ghost of a dreamlike smile edging at his lips as he gives her a wave,

"You will."

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the song, "Until the Light" by Lights, from her album Skin and Earth.


End file.
